The knives represent insulting words that can leave emotional scars as a real knife would leave physical ones. The message is that words can impact someone a lot more than you may think.
I drew some knives in various positions aimed at silhouettes of people in various positions. I photographed myself in front of a white background and got pictures of knives from the internet. I turned up the threshold and contrast on the picture of me to make it a silhouette, then I coloured any remaining bits black with the brush tool. I changed the knives colours to colours that correspond with colours on an album that has lyrics that this was roughly inspired by ("these words are knives that often leave scars" - This Is Gospel by Panic! At The Disco).
I am somewhat satisfied with my end result. It's what I had in mind but there's a lot of empty space at the top and I think it's a bit too simple. I learned how to make silhouettes.
